The deployment of CSR (Social and Environmental Responsibility) policies began because of strong societal expectations a few years ago. CSR aims to make companies to seriously consider the social, environmental and economic implications of their activities. They must, therefore, measure the impact of the actions carried out on these three components. Obviously, human resources are at the position of greatest importance. With these new challenges, they are seeing a growing production of information on all kinds of subjects concerned by CSR: health and safety, management of skills, employability, gender equality, ex. Thereafter, this information must be then transformed into indicators for CSR reporting.
How are the HR of the companies managing these tasks? Why are the uses so varied? Are there alternatives to the most commonly used solutions?
How are CSR reportings created?
The HR department is particularly affected by the issues related to CSR policies. It must, therefore, deal with the issues of management and sharing of mandatory indicators for CSR reportings, amidst the increasing requests from internal or external stakeholders, shorter production times and increasingly stringent regulatory constraints. To meet these requirements, 37%* of companies have therefore equipped themselves with software specialized in CSR reporting and is broadly growing.
But then what the 63% remaining do? Financial consolidation software and BI allocate 23%*! And for 23%*, again, these are the classic productivity tools like Excel! Not to forget that 79%* of CSR data are sourced from the field. The proof with Geodis’ experience feedback: “Each region put together CSR data in Excel with several consolidation steps and large files (more than 140 columns) […]“. This explains, in part, the reasons why companies still use office tools to carry out their reports. However, this is not the only reason, and more to come.
CSR Software: why isn’t suitable for all companies?
One-third of the companies are only equipped with specialized software because data are gathered from the field. However, other factors may explain this use of Excel and other files. Among them: the lack of flexibility and automation of current tools. This strongly affects the reliability of reporting. The specialized software is often developed according to a specific model and for all those coming out of this diagram, the difficulties appear that’s when expensive specific developments and tools multiply become necessary. For an example, only 7%* of CSR reporting processes are fully automated, as solutions rarely cover the reporting scope as a whole.
Then, companies often find themselves facing a major problem: the limitation of analysis possibilities. The specialized software has a limited level of the database structure. The people in charge of the reporting cannot go as far as they would like in the construction of their indicators. We understand better why office tools are still universal, but unfree of limitations.
What alternative for your CSR reporting?
Although spreadsheet tools are still widely used to collect, consolidate, and analyze CSR data, companies are still well aware of their limitations. The proof is that 56%* of them want to invest in a new CSR reporting tool. However, this leads to investment halting! Surprisingly, it is not the financial aspect that dominates, but the technical aspect. Having to identify the right tool and the technical efforts to integrate it, slows down the decision process. But then, is there no other alternative to office tools? Fortunately, yes!
The big users of spreadsheets for CSR reporting know it: once a file has been built, tested and works, it’s a goldmine! On the other hand, the reliability of the data is difficult to control, the management of the different versions can be a real hassle and the security of files type Excel is very often questioned.
To overcome these inconveniences, there is a very simple alternative to implement: Gathering Tools. This application takes the exact aspect of your Excel files while improving the various flaws. Data is now hosted in the organization’s IS, you can add consistency checking processes, build validation workflows, manage versions, and more. For CSR reporting, where nearly 80% of the data comes from the field, it is a profound turning point and we are not the only ones to affirm it: “Once the process carried under Gathering Tools, the collection allowed to win more than 3 weeks of delay and the project cost was thus profitable from the first campaign. Following this success, the annual collections will become quarterly and eventually monthly. “(Feedback from Bruno Ducros, Business Intelligence Manager, GEODIS).
